CURRENT MISSION

To play 30 shows in NYC homes over the next month while staying with and connecting to my hosts

ABOUT ME

I love to adventure. I have been blessed to grow up with an incredible network of wonderful weird and creative friends of all ages and dispositions. I am thrilled to be touring my album through NYC after having completed a New Zealand that went above and beyond my dreams. I played 80 shows in homes through NZ traveling on my bicycle and pulling a trailer. Now I'm on tour through NYC to play 30 homes traveling on roller blades whilst pushing a modified shopping cart. I have had the opportunity to play in various types of venues, but the intimacy of the home is completely inspired to me. I love playing in spaces that are lived in. Some times people tell me I'm doing something kind of new.... I tell them this is how it used to always be done. I'm just going back to the old ways.... with the help of the internet.

I love to cook, and listen to people's stories. Started playing music when I was 20. Moved to North Carolina to learn how to play the banjo from a Japanese banjoist named Akira Satake (now a remarkable potter) I had met 5 years earlier. Played in some bands. I think I'm a damn fine house guest. Good at dishes, folding things, being quiet, locking things. Good at recognizing the space folks need and giving it to them.

I love going to the movies. While I prefer good movies it's not a necessity that the movie be good cause I just love sitting in a theater, especially an old one. I don't drink anything with bubbles in it. Nothing fizzy. Never had a coke or a sprite. Wont go near it. Carbonation feels like a thousand little men with spears attacking my tongue.

PHILOSOPHY

Enjoy your birthday. listen, love, leap!Ageism is so limiting. We tend to stay too close and safe in our age groups. All ages have so much to give each other. Good to have friends from the cradle to the grave.Take risks. We are all going to die real soon. That is scary. The only thing scarier is not having lived (cliche but true(ooh I think saying that is also a cliche....cool!). Gotta take risks.

Perché sono iscritto su Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

In New Zealand I started my last tour with just five shows booked at fellow couch surfers homes. From the audience at those shows I got connected to more and more possible hosts down the line. I booked another 75 shows in homes from those first five and made amazing connections along the way. So I started with CS and then created my own network. I continue now to make my own couch surfing networks through my shows. Audience continue to recommend folks in other areas through the country and the world who they think would like to host my show.

While I have not officially hosted any couch surfers I have often welcomed travelers into my home. When I grew up my family was fortunate to have a bit of extra space. There was always somebody from some far off part of the world staying with us. Sometimes someone in the family had met that person, but just as often it was a friend of a friend of a friend. I loved that. It was exciting to hear all the stories. To have new and fresh movement in the home.I assume people are kind. I assume strangers are good. I think the energy of that assumption in part creates the reality. I was coming home at about 5 in the morning sometime in August right before a big hurricane was supposed to hit the city. I saw two young french folks walking next to me with gigantic backpacks. They looked exhausted and they were walking towards times square. I asked them how they were and what they were up to. They got stranded because of the hurricane and their friend was stuck down south (all the airports were closed). They had no place to stay and had never been to NY before so they were just "walking towards the lights". I invited them to crash on my couch and floor. They spent the next three days with me as the city completely shut down. We got along swimmingly and now I have two dear friends in the south of France. Hooray!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Toured around the country with a Garage Folk band for a while and we stayed on a lot of couches. Only one person through the couchsurfing site, but many couches were surfed. After each show we would make an announcement to the audience that we didn't know anyone in town and if anybody wanted to host us we would be much obliged. 9 weeks, 62 shows, 13,000 miles 25 states, we stayed with people we met every night. This last solo NZ tour I played in 80 homes and stayed with all my hosts. Currently playing and surfing in NYC. I've crashed in mansions and hovels. Boxcars and chateaus. Heroin dens and villas. Well... maybe not the last two. While I love to stay in a place where I can feel like I wont acquire multiple diseases by morning, some of the less pleasant spots have always given me a good story. Here's one: With a band in Billings Montana, we walked all our gear up five flights of stairs to a very nice young woman's apartment. She was trying to find a clean glass, in a monstrous pile of dishes that looked like a permanent sculptural installation, to give us some water. She could not find such a glass. Then she found a glass but could not get it clean. I found it funny that such a simple seaming task ended up being such an ordeal for her. While we were laying down our sleeping bags, on her wall to wall carpeted floor, she stopped me and said "oh. no. not on that side of the room. That's where the dog goes to bathroom." Carpeted floor! I just said no problem and moved to the other side. Later her room mate came home at four in the morning screaming bloody murder and called the cops cause she didn't know who these "aliens" were on her living room floor. We had met her several hours earlier. She was very very very drunk. When on the phone with 911 she kept telling them to send the Men In Black. It was an interesting evening.

Interessi

I love to cook. I play musical things like, Jews harps, banjo, guitar, bouzouki, harmonium, ocean harp, shruti box, clapping hands, whistling lips. I sing. I have my hang gliding license. bicycle. Contra dancing makes me mighty mighty happy, but when it's fun and raw and fast. Not so much a fan of the more puritan side of Contra's. Polaroid pictures. I love to take them. I love to hold them.

• dogs
• singing
• theater
• dancing
• cooking
• walking
• drinking
• shopping
• movies
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• cycling
• fishing
• surfing
• sports
• boxing
• hang gliding
• archery
• history
• science

Musica, film e libri

I love anything by Haruki Murakami. Wild Sheep Chase is my favorite. Moby Dick. The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down. Planet Walker.

Music Tapes. Tallest Man On Earth. Dark Dark Dark. Magnetic Fields. Joanna Newsome. The DeZurick sisters. Joni, Bob, Joan. Ryan Francesconi. Akira Satake. Anything with Jews Harps. Anything with Ocean Harps. Most things with Harps.

Una cosa incredibile che ho fatto

Played 80 shows through New Zealand homes whie traveling on a bike with trailer. I traveled over 4,000 kilometers while carrying 180lbs of gear and instruments.
www.uhohgiddymadeablog.wordpress.com

Insegna, impara, condividi

I know some things about music. I know some things about cooking. Those are the two domains I would feel at all confident in teaching. While I am not a master at either I think I do alright at both. I also know how to hang glide, chop and stack wood and drive a stick shift. Really good with kids. I've worked as a nanny a few times and at a daycare in the baby room for a couple years. Know how to set good healthy boundaries with little ones and have fun. I would like to learn anything someone wants to teach me.... or is willing to. Would love to know more about black smithing, archery, history and anything having to do with water... from sports to fishing to science. I love water.

Paesi che ho visitato

Australia, Canada, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Paesi in cui ho vissuto

United States

•